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Zahra Amir Ebrahimi- Humans are humans, a gorgeous combination of beauty and beast

Iqbal Latif - 11/21/2006

In the Islamic world legislation of public morals seems to be the best past time for clergy. The most evil way to curb individual freedom is to subject an individual to scrutiny of his/her private life. If a woman accuses someone of rape she needs four witnesses, if man accuses a woman of lewdness one is enough, if a woman is caught on videos four witnesses criterion is compromised. Humans are humans, a gorgeous combination of beauty and beast, no amount of theological harassment; ideological bullying and absolutism can change them into angels.The numbers of thesis by the senior clergy of Qom and Al-Azhar on issues relating to below the navel of a human being are mind-boggling. This fixation of curbing 'sex freedom' has one purpose only to deny pleasure and create a society driven by the fears of hell. Woman is a tool of easiest exploitation. Sexual humiliation and shame annihilate self-worth, for clergy to dominate masses this is the easiest tool. Killing and legislating for crimes below naval cavity for this reason is the best past time, it is carte blanche of control of masses.

As if Iran doesn't have enough political problems. The sex scandal on a Richter scale of 10 has hit Tehran. The internet is abuzz with the exploits of Zahra Amir Ebrahami enjoying consensual sex with her boyfriend. The video clearly indicates that both are very much part of this extremely sensuous and vulgar drama. Nothing has been left to the imagination. Although this is something very private to an ordinary woman, but for a woman who is a public figure, it poses a problem. Her face is very well recognized in Iran. She stars in a major soap opera that is very puritanical playing the role of a moral upstanding woman. Her picture in the Iranian-legislated scarf is quite simple and she looks like any beautiful Tehrani girl. The problem is that the puritans cannot reconcile the images of her private life with those in a scarf. What shocks them is how a girl so nice can be so lowly.

But I see nothing lowly or base about what she does in her very personal and private life. The very reason I am taken aback by such kind of open intrusion is because of the fact that decadent and closed societies take it upon themselves to legislate the lives of individuals.

Zahra Abrahami is no longer a lady, but a person who has challenged the foolishness of a system that encourages in public a behaviour which is very pious, and demonizes a human being who indulges in carnal pleasures, or rather, in a state equating to animals. Food and libidos are two desires which are very much a part of integral human behaviour. The issue is not about Zahra indulging in consensual sex, it is about questioning ourselves as to what right we have to object and legislate her performance. In privacy of oneself, only God knows the real truth, and no mortal has any divine authority to play judge, jury and executioner. If someone's privacy is violated we should condemn the people who shamefully invade those private moments, but not those who indulge in such private moments of very normal human behaviour. Let's be honest. Had it not been for carnal pleasure, it would defy the very fundamental reason of our existence, that of procreation.

I believe this whole scandal that has hit Iran so hard should be taken in light of something far too basic, and that is the ability of the government to interfere in lives of individuals because they seemingly become a threat to public morality. I think anyone who watches the video clip for reasons other than appreciation must be a serious pervert. If the beauty spills her secrets for the world to see, by mistake or design, everyone has the right to enjoy the exquisiteness of the whole drama being played before their eyes.

Draconian laws that penalise individuals on grounds of illegally obtained evidence through clear infringement of privacy of individuals should be repealed. Persecution, caning, jail or even possible stoning to death through unlawfully gained evidence against sexual promiscuous notions in private can open a Pandora box of persecutions in this age of advanced technology. What happens behind the four walls of a private home are affairs which even Gods never wanted to be made public. Zarah Amir Ebrahimi case leaves a need of crucial set of legislation in this modern age, that of indifference of state cruel machinery when morality is compromised in what was to be a secret rendezvous. No infringement of public morality has taken place in open; the tool of broadband connections that has made this lewdness public is a tool of choice. Every prying eye that saw her video searched for it and saw it knowing clearly well that what it was. It was free option based on mass hysteria and lewd minds of public that drove in thousands to enjoy the rendezvous. She did not ask for those prying eyes to invade her privacy. She did not post them to the net or released an official version like Paris Hilton!! If public sensitivities were offended they could have easily turn off the connection, no breach of public decency and ethics would occur.

Laws are not cast in stone. The Islamic Republic of Iran occupies the unlikely role of global leader for sex changes! Why? Benevolence of clergy has helped hundreds of transsexuals in Iran through constructive surgery legislation. Today transsexuals wanting to become a woman or vice-versa in Iran can to change their sex. This situation would have been impossible were it not for the courage and perseverance of Molkara, who embarked on a personal odyssey that brought persecution and abuse in her quest for Khomeini's official blessing. Before this fatwa they were branded as homosexuals- a criminal offence in Iran where the law allows for persistent offenders to be punished with death.

The story in Guardian is typical of her unique struggle. It could take something extraordinary to move the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini to issue a fatwa. For Maryam Khatoon Molkara it required the equally dramatic step of confronting Khomeini in person and proving, in graphic terms, that she was a woman trapped inside a man's body.

Donning a man's suit, she walked to Khomeini's heavily protected compound in north Tehran, carrying a copy of the Qur'an. In an additional piece of religious symbolism, she had tied shoes around her neck. The gesture - redolent of Ashura, the Shia festival depicting the heroism of the third imam Hossein - was meant to convey that she was seeking shelter.At first, it failed to provide her with any. As she approached the compound, armed security guards pounced and began beating her. They stopped only when Khomeini's brother, Hassan Pasandide, witnessing the scene, intervened and took Molkara into his house.

There, Molkara - then bearded, tall and powerfully built - hysterically tried to explain her predicament. "I was screaming, 'I'm a woman, I'm a woman'," she says. The security guards, fearing Molkara was carrying explosives, were anxious about the band wrapped around her chest. She removed it to reveal the female breasts underneath. The women in the room rushed to cover her with a chador.By then, Khomeini's son, Ahmad, had arrived and was moved to tears by Molkara's story. Amidst the emotion, it was decided to take Molkara to the supreme leader himself. On meeting the near-mythic figure in whom she had invested such hope, Molkara fainted.

"I was taken into a corridor," Molkara says. "I could hear Khomeini raising his voice. He was blaming those around him, asking how they could mistreat someone who had come for shelter. He was saying, 'This person is God's servant.' He had three of his trusted doctors in the room and he asked what the difference was between hermaphrodites and transsexuals. What are these 'difficult-neutrals', he was saying. Khomeini didn't know about the condition until then. From that moment on, everything changed for me." Molkara left the Khomeini compound with a letter addressed to the chief prosecutor and the head of medical ethics giving religious authorisation for her - and, by implication, others like her - to surgically change their gender. It was the fatwa she had sought. Today Hojatolislam Muhammad Mehdi Kariminia, a cleric based in the holy city of Qom, is writing a PhD thesis on transsexuality. "The basic humanity of the person is preserved," is his conclusion. "The change is simply of characteristics."

Zahra Amir Abrahami, although going through the entire course of penetration and imaginative exercises in the video, should not face any kind of threat to her freedom. She should not be facing a court based on video evidence alone. Going by the strictures of Islam, there should be four witnesses. But there are none. The Chief Prosecutor of Tehran, Saeed Mortazavi, has intervened and asked the Interpol to arrest Zahra's partner who escaped to one of the Gulf states. What does a public prosecutor have to do with a personal video? Where are the four witnesses who should testify to such an act? A video could have been doctored and very easily so. There have been similar occasions, like Chuck Norris having gay sex, and many other celebrities have gone through this crisis too. Some are brave, like Zahra, who must have taken a leaf from Roman Polanski and Sharon Tate's book when they consensually made a sex tape in 1969. But fame for that particular tape came more as evidence used by the LA Police Department for investigation in Sharon Tate's murder. One other reason the public prosecutor should not lay any importance here is because videos cannot be deemed as final evidence. Maybe the girl is not Zahra Amir Abrahami. In 1970, a porn movie purported to feature Barbara Streisand, before she became a star, was floating around for decades. Even Streisand admitted she watched the movie because the woman held a striking resemblance to her.

The mullahs pounce on every opportunity to promote goodness and public morality over vulgarity and tend to take the case into their own safe hands, ready to conduct deep microscopic examination of ethics and morals of the society. It upsets them why Zahra and her partner have been so creative in the 26-minute video. They thought they had effectively sentenced Iran to the Cave Age since the last 38 years, and fooled themselves into believing Iranians had lost the definition or understanding of carnal pleasures and natural human libidos. This underestimation of Iranian libido is the worst offence against a nation. They thought by putting the whole nation into a straitjacket of scarf and medievalism, they've managed to arrest Iranians' natural progression.

The real problem in clergy-dominated Iran is how such vulgarity and creativity in sexual responses can be practiced by Iranian youths? They totally discount the fact that Iranians are as creative and open-minded as any of their counterparts in any part of the world. It is in the closed and convoluted societies where humans are unable to express their freedom of mind and freedom of physical expression in private becomes what people think and term as very horny. But the actual fact is that love-making has no boundaries and no frontiers. Zahra and her partner need the support of every human being and should be sympathized with. Let he who has not sinned cast the first stone. Let's see the visible beauty of this elegant lady in her full glory, enjoying her privacy to the hilt. Those who can't do it and have inabilities will be the ones to criticize the most.

Look at Paris Hilton when her boyfriend, Rick Solomon, released "A Night in Paris," she filed a lawsuit, not for anything else, but for invasion of her privacy. They later reached an out-of-court settlement in July 2005. The very same video received an AVN award in 2005 for the bestselling title of the year, best rental of the year, and best overall marketing campaign for the year. Basically, "A Night in Paris" cannot be rated as a better video than Zahra's; on a scale of 1 to 10, her video rates at 7 or 8, whereas Hilton's easily sits at 5. Both are very explicit footages showing clear vaginal penetration and fellacio, but it is evident that it was a very personal home video and both girls are seen interrupting their sessions by attending to mundane things. Like Hilton was answering her mobile phone, whereas Zahra's video is set on two different days, both taking turns to act for the cameras. At the end of the day, this is a private encounter and only those who are interested in artistic beauty should even make an effort to pass a comment on it. It's a beautiful encounter; even if one needs to comment, it should be like commending Brando in "The last tango in Paris," or Hoffman in "The Midnight Cowboy." Private lovemaking, even if maliciously revealed by her partner through such unpardonable conduct and introduced to the part of human base culture, it could be treated as a work of art. Sometimes an artist comes out with an expression meant for his private and personal collection, but if others become privy to it, it becomes our moral obligation to respect these private moments. Nudity and sensuality are depicted as the most beautiful art forms of nature and human expression. The Statue of David, or the nudes of Rembrandt or van Gogh or Titian, depending on the eyes that view them, they could either be art, or offensive to the repressed mind, or a subject of derogatory amusement to the perverted. It is a matter of personal choice and preference; one either appreciates the sheer beauty of the artist's imagination and its manifestation on a canvas or a slab of marble, or he looks the other way, but nobody has the right to destroy it.

The chief prosecutor's move to turn this case into that of degradation and insult to Iran does not hold any water. Extramarital sex might be prohibited in Iran, but the clergy should realize that they cannot control personal desires through legislation. And expression in sex cannot be conducted through the dictates of the clergy. If a human has to act freely, let him act. She being a character of morality should not be made an example by the state for immorality or vulgarity. It was within closed walls. Imagine, if all our private moments are exposed to the world, none of us would be able to cast the first stone. Human beings, before passing judgement on others, should look at their own weaknesses or perversions. It is freedom from such perversions that brings you nirvana. My heart goes out to Zahra and hope that she does not have to face the ignominy of a court case or public lashing. When the state starts conducting an exercise of promoting virtuousness and curbing vice, then no one's privacy remains secure. This video is a clear example of how human beings are free and how their animal instincts operate within the privacy of their homes. If by chance or by evil design our private moments are made an object of public display, let us have the courage to denounce that.

The clergy can only go so far. They have taken all the freedom of the public away; they have covered the women from head to toe, they could do that through police and injunctions, but they must have well realized that people are people. Their credo is that if you are beautiful you should not seek attention. And they can achieve it with the vice police they created. But one simply cannot conquer and curb the inner feelings of people and the way they react. It is not vulgarity; it is how humans act, as nature meant it to be and as old as time. A woman of high morality and good standing has desires which, in private, can borrow imagination but that cannot be tainted as western or derived from outside influence. A great expression of sex in no way can have western influence. It is pure human expression and really that simple.

Today, the self-righteous and sanctimonious attitude in Iran needs a rethink post Zahra video. There is no need for legislation of public morality on what they do within their four walls. Video footages are not conclusive evidences and should not be taken as grounds for penal prosecution. There is no provision for that in the Islamic penal code. The Shariah specifically demands four eyewitnesses and there is good reason for that. A woman's virtue and dignity are deeply revered in Islam. This is why on the Day of Judgement, it is proclaimed that all men and women will be called upon by their mothers' names, to preserve the morality and chastity of women. If modern means of electronics did not exist, nobody would have known about Zahra's sexual exploits nor seen them. Neither science nor scientific evidence should be used selectively, be it genetic science, stem cell technology or modern day connectivity. Apply science productively, not to penalize, or subject people to draconian laws, or sentence them to prison. Those who want to take the nation back to the scriptures revealed over 1400 years ago should not use today's technology to castigate people as and when it suits them. The same standard of evidence strictly enjoined in the 1400-year-old scriptures, that of four witnesses, should be applied.

Legislating morality is the best past time for the Islamists. In neighboring Pakistan the Islamic laws, known as the Hudood Ordinances, were introduced by a military ruler, President Zia-ul-Haq, in 1979. They made a rape victim liable to prosecution for adultery if she could not produce four male witnesses to the assault.

Now an amendment has been approved that takes rape out of the sphere of religious law and puts it under the penal code. That does away with the need for male witnesses and will allow convictions to be made on the basis of forensic and circumstantial evidence. Thousands of women suffered under this law where a rape victim would be imprisoned as she could not produce four eye witnesses required by Islamic Shariah. Any efforts to accord freedom to women from shackles of self imposed responsibility of managing love lives of women by clergy is opposed by the clergy universally. Maulana Fazal-ur-Rehman told the assembly the change to the law would encourage free sex. "This is an attempt to create a free sex zone in Pakistan," he said. "Existing laws are correct and should be maintained ... The changes are not in line with Islamic teaching." It looks as if fun and pleasure are anti-thesis of ideology.

Zahra Amir Abrahimi's sex life should only cause a storm of interest in their personal lives; she has taught a lot of new things to the millions of prying eyes who are watching this video. 680,000 people have downloaded it so far. What a tragedy for Zahra. While Paris Hilton's exploits propelled her to the world of stardom, Zahra faces ruin, a public lashing, and a jail sentence. The Tehrani hardline chief prosecutor, Mortazavi, is well advised to leave the poor girl alone.